Campaign Recommendation: Arkham Horror vs Lord of the Rings

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I'm a relatively new player who is curiously examining the LCG Genre, particularly the co-op variations within the system. I find myself drawn toward cooperative play, just because I find it more fun to play with friends rather than against them (although that's not to say that competitive games are frowned upon). I really like the idea of playing through a story with my friends, and through all the materials I have read, Fantasy Flight has really found a way to excel in that area. I love the respective worlds of H.P. Lovecraft and J.R.R. Tolkien, and have been weighing the options of both Arkham Horror LCG and LOTR LCG to further explore their interpretations of the material.

Long story short, I'm thinking about getting one of them. Which one, as the base game, would you recommend between the two and why?

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Well, this started as a short post, but I've been meaning to write about on this topic for some time because there have been a lot of players asking for advice on which game (LotR or Arkham) they should play. So here is my overly long epic. Maybe I'll repost this as an actual blog post someplace. Anyway, hope it helps with your decision.

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Ah the inevitable question of which game you should play: Arkham Horror LCG (I'll call it Arkham), or Lord of the Rings LCG (I'll call it LotR). Although they may seem similar, the fact is that they are quite different games that exist in the same genre. In my mind the best way to decide which game is for you is to look at these major structural differences to see which appeal to you more. Below I go into what I see as the biggest differences between the games and discuss the pros and cons of each game. Just to note my own bias, I own and play both, but prefer LotR for a number of reason. With that out of the way, here are the big differences that I see:

1. Game Narrative:
Both games actually have a very strong narrative component. LotR is a bit more like reading through a book in that you keep playing a scenario until you are successful and then you move on to the next. In the end you have a really neat story (the later expansions do a particularly good job of telling a seamless story). Arkham is more similar to an RPG in that success and failure are both options – the game specifically urges you not to simply replay individual scenarios until you win. And some scenarios don't have truly "good" resolutions, forcing you to pick the “less bad” outcome, as is appropriate to the Lovecraft universe. Arkham also has you keep track of certain choices you make during the game, and these decisions can come back to haunt or help you. So if you fail to kill a boss enemy in scenario 1, it's likely that they'll show back up in the future.

In my estimation, Arkham has a more compelling narrative because you have at least some control over the story. But this benefit comes with logistical... issues. A single story lasts through one deluxe expansion and 6 mini-expansions. This means that it takes about 8 months for a single story to come out. Since each scenario is dependent on the former (in several ways), it means that you can only continue a campaign or start a new one. Continuing your campaign has issues because, again, it takes 8 months for the whole campaign to be released. You will quickly be forced into a position where you either set aside the game for a month until the next scenario is released, or you have to start a new campaign. Simply playing the latest scenario with a new deck isn't an option. LotR has none of these problems – when you sit down, you can pull out any scenario and play it.

2. Character Progression:
The next big difference is that your investigators in Arkham will actually grow and change while you play the game. This growth is reflected in the contents of your deck, which will change in some good ways and some bad. Some of the changes will be as a direct result of the events of the story, and some are more like leveling up in an RPG (pick your new power). LotR has no progression – you build your deck and it remains static unless you elect to change it. This provides the feeling that your LotR characters are at the height of their power and experience, while Arkham investigators are slowly experiencing the horror of their world. Again, I think both systems reflect their source material. I should note that the Saga expansions of LotR (which play through the events of the book) have optional campaign rules which do allow you to make slight modifications to your deck (you might find a cache of treasure or be given a gift from Galadriel that you can keep in your deck). It kind of feels like Arkham-light.

On the surface, the progression system in Arkham system is the clear winner. But again, it comes with significant logical issues. The fact that your deck changes means that it is impossible to keep ready-to-play decks on hand. Your deck is either unmodified (meaning that it can only be used for the first scenario of a campaign), or modified (meaning that it can only be used for the scenario immediately after the one you just played). So when I sit down for a game night of Arkham, I am limited in both the deck I can use and the scenario I can play. LotR just doesn't have this drawback – I can pick up any deck and play it against any scenario.

3. Feel of the Gameplay:
I think the games feel very different. LotR is much more reminiscent of a traditional customizable card game – you build your deck build around specific combos and synergies. Of course the major difference is that you aren't working against the other players at the table. It almost feels like the most friendly game of Game of Thrones (or Magic, or L5R, or ...) that you've ever played. Some of this likely comes from the fact that LotR has a much larger card pool than Arkham, so more synergies and combos exist. On the other hand, Arkham feels more like an RPG in that you are a character inside a party with a role to play. The synergies often come between decks rather than within decks. Working well with the team might be more important than pulling off your deck's super combo.

Arkham also deserves special mention for its board-like system. Locations are played on the table like a board, and you have to actually move your investigator around to specific places. It solidifies some of the abstraction that exists in LotR.

The final gameplay difference worth talking about is player scalability, by which I mean the degree to which a scenario keeps its degree of difficulty regardless of the number of players (1-4) playing. Arkham does this better because of the "per investigator” rule. LotR would tell you to advance to the next part of the story once you've made X progress (regardless of the number of players playing), but Arkham says to collect a total of X clues per player before moving on. The scaling in LotR is ok, just not perfect. I'd say 2-3 players is the sweet spot for LotR.

4. “Action” Resolution:
This is kind of a sub-category of gameplay. In Arkham, actions are resolved by counting up your total skill points (which you can add to for a given check by discarding cards) and then drawing a tile out of a bag with a negative point value. If your check is above the target number, you succeed. It feel a bit like rolling dice, which fits with its RPG roots. LotR is more... well... “mathy” is the best way I have to describe it. You add up your total number (like willpower of questing characters), and subtract the enemy's total number (like threat in the staging area). In higher player count games of LotR, I keep a threat dial around with the express purpose of keeping track of numbers. This hasn't been necessary for Arkham.

5. Core Box Experience:
This is unfortunately LotR's Achilles heel. The designers just didn't have as much experience when they made it as they did for Arkham. Not only is LotR the the older game, but it was the first cooperative customization card game of its type ever made (that I'm aware of). While the early scenarios aren't bad, they are somewhat inconsistent. As an example, the core set has three scenarios: one of which is the excellent learning scenario that you are unlikely to play once you understand the game; the second is one of the very best in the game to this day; and the third is widely considered one of the worst and most frustrating in the game (there are debates on whether it is beatable with only a core box if you are playing solo). I should note that the scenarios rapidly get better, and if you focus on some of the more recent expansions, you'll find some real gems. Arkham benefits from being the more recently designed game – it clearly learned from LotR. The core box includes three very good and fun scenarios.

Personal final thoughts:

I think that which game you play will depend on how you weigh the different factors. For me, I value having a box of decks sitting on hand that allow me to instantly play any scenario (a new one, or an old favorite). The fact that Arkham doesn't let me do this means that it often gets overlooked in my household. But when I do have the energy to coordinate deck construction and play through an entire campaign without stopping (maybe after everything's been released?) then I do enjoy it. Gun to my head, if I could only have one game, it would be LotR without question.

TL;DR: Highlights for each game:LotR:

Can play any scenario with any deck at the cost of slightly less compelling story and no real character progression.

Decks can be build independently because much of the synergy happen inside the deck.

Action resolution can sometime feel “mathy.”

The game scales 2-3 players extremely well, but can be tricky with 1 or 4 players.

Core experience is a bit weak, but becomes amazing with expansions.

Arkham:

Extremely limited in what you can play and the deck you can play with. But this means that you gain some control over the narrative, and your character progresses over time.

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That's fascinating, I had the exact opposite experience in LotR vs AH: finding one deck to rule them all is almost a suicidal mission in LotR because there are scenarios that simply screw you if you don't have specific cards (try winning Cair Andros with a Spirit deck and we can talk); if you play 2H (or 2p) in LotR you want sinergy across the decks because there's a ton of effects that can snowball if built properly (player A creates a dwarf deck around Dain, and player B has no dwarves in his deck? C'mon). Core game LotR is one of the best core set experience of all times, with Journey down the Anduin considered by many one of the best scenarios ever appeared for the game, while core experience for AH is really meh, low replayability and poor structure: the strength of the game is in the campaign mode, and with only 3 scenarios you don't have enough of a story to tell. Action resolution in AH is by no means rolling of dice but risk management because you know the distribution of the token's result; and it's not limited in any way, there's a ton of decks you can build and they all work rather well.

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I play both. I feel Arkham Horror is more of a casual game than LotR. That said, if I really want a challenge, I look to LotR. LotR rewards precise card plays and recognizing combos and synergy. Arkham Horror has too much variance to rely on that, but rather your ability to adapt to the changing conditions of the scenario hold more importance.

For LotR, you can always guarantee the the encounter deck will try to crush you based on its difficulty.

In Arkham Horror, you can find yourself being rewarded or punished by the scenario based on how fortunate you are.

You can see this in how the gencon events turned out, where as some groups did beat the Arkham Horror Epic adventure, but no one beat the LotR epic adventure.

I love both games, and I collect both games, because while they are both co-op lcgs, they do play vastly different and encourage players to approach both differently.

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I didn't read any of the responses, I think its best to get several opinions so here is mine.

I am a long time player of LotR's and I just recently got into Arkham Horror as well.

For me personally while I'm really enjoying Arkham Horror and I'm certain to keep up with expansions, but LotR is the bigger draw for me.

There are several things that I think LotR does better, but I think Arkham definitely has some muscle as well.

First, LotR is a proper Deck building experience. Now its true before you can deck build with either game you need to expand, the core set is in no way shape or form enough for deck building for either game, effectively it doesn't exist at all, its more like "deck adjustment". After a few expansions and sets however LotR is a robust, varied, highly customizable game with a massive range of options for deck building. And you will customize/deck build to beat each adventure, as every challenge requires some sort of "rethinking of the puzzle", its one of the amazing aspects of LotR as you are constantly reassessing your card pool, hero's and concept about deck building. Its simply one of the best deck building experiances I have had in any of FFG's games.

Arkham Horror on the hand is a pretty limited deck building experience, actually in the line of FFG LCG's, its the most limited game in the entire lineup. The decks are small, investigators come with hard limiting options (aka a laundry lists of "cant's"), there is a lot of pigeon holding, Investigators only come with Main Expansions (not in adventure packs). If your looking for deck building challenges and puzzles, this is the last game I would choose.

On the flip end I think Arkam Horrors on going (always forward pass or fail) "campaign/story" system is far superior to LotR's systems (or perhaps better to say the lack thereof). With Arkham when you sit down to play a campaign, your going to play it. There is no, oh I failed a mission, lets do it again thing.. you are always progressing forward, there are branching paths and you can finish a campaign having failed every mission to find out your miserable fate. In LotR failing a quest in a campaign means, you play it again and you keep doing it over and over again until you succeed (at least by the rules). This can be a bit tedious in particular if your interest is in experiencing the story, more than that though, while some might argue, a solid 20-30% **** near impossible to beat so you often run into stuff that you just can't get through. To me that's part of the challenge, I like having things I can't beat and trying to find a way to do it, but yeah it can burn you out. Arkham Horror has that "oh can't beat it, maybe you can evade it instead" kind of thing going for it. In terms of story, well its theme preference but I think both games have fantastic stories with great flavor that spurs the imagination so in that regard you pick the theme you like more.

Finally, mechanically speaking, I think Arkham Horror is a bit more of a robust game, which may sound weird after I said it wasn't much of a deck builder, but really in terms of actions, resource management, smart card play, good timing, you can overcome things in clever ways and beat some pretty tough scenarios. Aka, the mechanics can be used against the game to out play it and you really do see that even after just a couple of games. That is not to say LotR's is bad gameplay wise, I love that mechanic as well, but it really is a "my deck" vs. "Encounter Deck" kind of a thing. Its a game of building a deck that stands up to the Adventure Deck which are varied and unique all of them, but that's what it is. You can't "game" the game, you beat the game by building really good decks. In that though is the puzzle solving aspect of trying to figure out how to beat a quest through deck building.

In my humble opinion both games are fantastic, budget allowing I think they are both worth investing in a core and a few expansions just to see which floats your boat, but barring that, I would probably pick it more on theme then anything else unless you recognize something in yourself from some of the feedback like "I don't like building decks" for example.. in that case, don't pick LotR, or if you really love deck building, don't do Arkham Horror you will be disappointed. They are both very smart games, **** they are both Nate French so .. you know its going to be good, the man is like a card game making savant!

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On the surface, the progression system in Arkham system is the clear winner. But again, it comes with significant logical issues. The fact that your deck changes means that it is impossible to keep ready-to-play decks on hand. Your deck is either unmodified (meaning that it can only be used for the first scenario of a campaign), or modified (meaning that it can only be used for the scenario immediately after the one you just played). So when I sit down for a game night of Arkham, I am limited in both the deck I can use and the scenario I can play. LotR just doesn't have this drawback – I can pick up any deck and play it against any scenario.

Your comparison is sound. I do wish to point something out though, and that it is possible to play to both games weaknesses. It is possible to string together the scenarios to be a more realized campaign. Even though the stories in the packs do connect, there is little carry over effects from gameplay. I propose a house rule: when breaking down your decks between scenarios, do not switch out your heroes. Only if they die during a scenario do you switch them out afterwards.

Arkham Horror, on the other hand, allows for stand alone game play. The core set campaign includes instructions as to how to set up the game. Each Mythos Pack, as well as the second scenario in the Path To Carcosa Deluxe Expansion, have instructions on how to set up for single game experiences.

These, however, goes to both games weaknesses. LotR was not designed without player choice in mind. You had to win the scenario, and if you couldn't you have to rebuild your decks so you can. To keep the heroes set in place is a bit too restrictive for the nature of this game. Arkham Horror was built as a scenario driven game. The decisions made were to carry over to the next scenario. To take that away would to limit the experience of the game.

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I think something should be said for replayability, too. With LotR, you have a pretty set story for each scenario. Sometimes there may be two or more ways to finish, but in general once you've played it you've got the story. In AH, you can play the same scenario again making different choices and get a different story both in that scenario and in future scenarios.

In LotR, the fun of replaying a scenario is primarily from trying it with different decks (e.g. "My Dwarf Leadership deck did OK, but I wonder how Dunedain Tactics will fare?"). In AH, you could use the same deck several times and get completely different outcomes.

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I've played both and I far prefer Arkham Horror. With LotR, I felt very much like I was very mechanically building a deck to counter a specific scenario. At no point do I feel like I'm taking on the role of a LotR hero. It feels more like a mental/mathematical/puzzle exercise to me. Take A to counter X. Take B to counter Y, etc. It'd not bad, but it never pulls me in the same way AH does. With AH, I feel like I'm taking on the role of a specific 1920's era personality. It's more of a role-playing game in that sense. You pick your character, pick your abilities (build your deck) and then make choices as you play. There is a map of different location that you can freely (most of the time) move between. There are usually numerous ways to beat each challenge. Different games for different people. I like both, but I prefer AH.

Another thing I prefer about AH is the difficulty mechanic. The game uses a skill test mechanic where you pull a random token with a modifier from a bag. If your skill +/- modifier equals or surpasses the test difficulty, you pass. If not, you fail. You can make the game easier or harder by modifying the bag. The game comes with 4 different difficulty levels. The campaign mode sometimes makes the bag easier if you're doing poorly and harder if you're doing well by telling you to add or remove tokens from the bag at the end of a scenario. I know that LotR also has a difficulty mechanic, but does so by modifying the encounter deck. With LotR, you're playing a watered down version of the scenario. With AH, you're playing the same scenario with easier to accomplish challenges. Because of this, I can build an objectively bad deck and play on easy and have a decent chance at getting a successful outcome if I'm a good player. With LotR, an objectively bad deck probably won't have a successful outcome, regardless of difficulty level.

Also, to be clear, with AH you CAN just pick up any old scenario, build a deck and play it. People seem to miss this, but you just build a deck at whatever experience level you want and then add an extra weakness card to your deck for every 10th XP you added. For that reason, 9XP (0 extra weaknesses) and 19XP (1 extra weakness) decks are common XP levels for this type of play. I think the campaign system is more rewarding, but the game absolutely supports the ability to have ready built decks to use versus random scenarios. Just as with LotR, you just need to own the corresponding deluxe box for the scenario you play so that you have all the necessary encounter sets.

I tend to play LotR solo. I play campaign AH with two different groups and then play solo scenarios as a way of trying out different decks/investigators/new cards. I use RingsDB and ArkhamDB to track decklists.

Short answer... if you can afford both, buy both. They're both worthwhile and neither takes up much space on the old gaming shelf. If you can only buy one and prefer logic puzzles, buy LotR. If you prefer role-playing games where your decisions have a long term impact, buy AH.

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LotR didn't really capture Middle-Earth for me. I want to see mountains again, Gandalf! Mountains!....not engage in miserly economic puzzles with clunky combat. The art is fantastic and the idea of going on the quests is appealing, but actually playing the game left me wanting.

AH has both the theme (if you're into Lovecraft or horror) and the mechanics.

Also, I think co-op games should also have some level of personal achievement, and I think AH lends itself to that a bit more with the bag and deckbuilding rules than LotR does.

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I find LotR really rewards deck design; a lot of the outcome is determined before you start playing ... and there are just lots and lots of cards to use, which makes the design portion before you start playing more interesting. Some of the mechanics ( locations, for example ) tend to penalize larger teams, and the puzzle / deck-building aspect doesn't really translate to larger groups either.

Arkham includes random draws from the bag, in addition to cards, which adds a lot more variance: something I find frustrating solo, but which adds a lot to the multiplayer game. (It feels like you have a 30% chance in any given game of getting crushed mercilessly by tentacles from outer space, 30% chance of succeeding so fast you miss the distinctive features of a mission.) In a multi-player game, some people are succeeding pulling off crazy combos, other are getting crushed and being forced to resign, but it smooths out the experience. The variation adds a lot of tension, but in a good way.

I personally prefer LotR; but both are well-designed games with a lot of depth.

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Mono-Spirit Caldara can do this pretty well. As can Galadriel / Glorfindel / Boromir, which is almost entirely Spirit. Not easy, but it's definitely doable.

Also, I love LotR with 4. We play it all the time. It's an entirely different beast. If you've already done it with 1 or 2, I highly recommend playing through every cycle with 4. You'll find entirely different challenges. Some scenarios will be completely trivial, while others because brutally difficult.

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Mono-Spirit Caldara can do this pretty well. As can Galadriel / Glorfindel / Boromir, which is almost entirely Spirit. Not easy, but it's definitely doable.

Also, I love LotR with 4. We play it all the time. It's an entirely different beast. If you've already done it with 1 or 2, I highly recommend playing through every cycle with 4. You'll find entirely different challenges. Some scenarios will be completely trivial, while others because brutally difficult.

The Cair Andros example was just to indicate that some scenarios could require deck-tuning / deck-rebuilding, something that's absent in AH LCG, which is conceived with the idea that the same deck should be able to defeat a series of scenarios in a row (with upgrades due to experience gained, of course).